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Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

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Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#511

Post by dragonwriter »

JAlexoid wrote: post #422
sudosysgen wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservatism is a relative term. You can be a conservative right-winger, a conservative socialist, a conservative liberal or any other kind of conservative as long as your social situation fits it. Many articles by the Economist are conservative in that they intend to defend and conserve the status-quo, especially when dealing with foreign policy.

You're using conservativism vey much in American GOP understanding of the term, which has stopped being conservative a while ago. Conservativism is a relative position, but you can't be a conservative liberal. Economist literally had a massive article what is conservativism. And - SPOILER - UK Torries used to be conservative, while GOP has been reactionary/populist for a while now.

> Conservativism is a relative position, but you can't be a conservative liberal.

As a relative politico-economic position, conservative is “defense of the position of status quo elites”.

In a society with a capitalist (including most modern mixed) economy, “conservative” in the relative sense is always economically liberal, because the status quo elites in a capitalist society are those empowered by and dependent on economic liberalism for their position.

(“Classical conservativism” is not relative, and is defined relative to the pre-capitalist status quo, and is specifically tends to be about the defense of the titled, landed aristocracy. But, because that is no longer an established elite, there's not a lot of classical conservatism left to defend.)

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#512

Post by Ajedi32 »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #377
_-david-_ wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you supposed to argue against something if you don't even understand why someone supports what they support? All you will end up doing is strawmaning their views which won't convince anybody to change their views.

Do I need to understand why someone supports flat earth theory to be able to argue that it's scientifically invalid? Why is it up to me to figure out how they got deluded?

You don't have to argue with flat earthers if you don't want to. But if you're going to argue against that position then yes, you absolutely must first understand why they hold it. Otherwise you'll spend all your time attacking straw men and get nowhere with your argument.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#513

Post by slumdev »

laputan_machine wrote: post #426
slumdev wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two centrisms that can't be confused. The first kind of centrist examines each issue on its merits and arrives at a principled conclusion, regardless of how other people think about an issue. This kind of centrism is reasonable. This person can't really even be called a centrist. He's just non-partisan. The second kind of centrist looks at the existing parties to an argument and averages their viewpoints: "…

Can you give an example of the second type? I see this kind of strawman argument against centrism all the time, yet I rarely see "worst of both worlds" outcomes in a political sense

Most Americans support an abortion ban, but they also support exceptions for rape or incest.

If the fetus is a human person with rights, there should be no exception.

If the fetus is not a human person with rights, then restrictions of any kind are unjust.

The provenance of the fetus has no effect on the moral liceity of killing it. It's a lazy opinion formed by appeals to emotion.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#514

Post by parafactual »

prof-dr-ir wrote: post #443
ahelwer wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with this standard is it can only be applied to situations where you're making decisions about the fates of other people - where you don't have skin in the game. It would be ridiculous to, for example, require that all trans people possess in-depth knowledge of TERF arguments against the validity of their identity (along with counter-arguments) before accepting that they understand their own identity. So su…

I think I see what you are trying to argue and let me say, with as much respect as this comment box allows me to convey, that I completely disagree. First of all, if you have skin in the game then it becomes even more important to try to understand the opposition's arguments in order to convince them to join your cause and to prevent others from joining the other side. As for your example, I am convinced that trans p…

Deeply understanding viewpoints that pose a direct threat to you takes a lot of effort. It takes time and mental resources. I don't think it is fair to expect that of everyone; activists, sure, but most people just want to live and feel safe. That is hard as is, especially for trans people.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#515

Post by trophycase »

lamontcg wrote: post #495

I don't understand this fetishism with centrism and all opinions being treated equally, and that having made up your mind on an issue is necessarily wrong. When it comes to an issue like, say, climate change, I spent years reading the blogosphere, reading blogs like WUWT and whatever Judith Curry would come up with, and then the rebuttals, sometimes waiting years for the science to come out. For any issue around clim…

Unfortunately the whole "Lab Leak" COVID thing has given them another 5 years of legitimacy probably.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#516

Post by adflux »

lamontcg wrote: post #495

I don't understand this fetishism with centrism and all opinions being treated equally, and that having made up your mind on an issue is necessarily wrong. When it comes to an issue like, say, climate change, I spent years reading the blogosphere, reading blogs like WUWT and whatever Judith Curry would come up with, and then the rebuttals, sometimes waiting years for the science to come out. For any issue around clim…

Why mention Joe Rogan viewers...?

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#517

Post by zamadatix »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #377
_-david-_ wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you supposed to argue against something if you don't even understand why someone supports what they support? All you will end up doing is strawmaning their views which won't convince anybody to change their views.

Do I need to understand why someone supports flat earth theory to be able to argue that it's scientifically invalid? Why is it up to me to figure out how they got deluded?

How can you both show a claim is scientifically invalid and simultaneously not understand the claim? The "why" here is the "why of the claim" not the "why they came to think that" (though the latter may still be useful if you're trying to convince someone but that's a different issue).

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#518

Post by cwkoss »

anm89 wrote: post #346
fancyfish wrote: post #287

The elephant in the room is that this sort of enlightened centrism, while it sounds noble, rests on several ill-formed assumptions. The first is that, by reading from both sides, they’ll balance and you’ll arrive at an enlightened center. This assumes the Overton Window is balanced, stationary, and not tilted to one side or the other. You’re beholden to the good judgement of each side to not move themselves further l…

Attacking the center is always the craziest narrative to me. It's saying: not only is it not okay to disagree with me and be on the other side, it's also not okay to not passionately agree with my exact side. The only right way to view these complex issues is to sign your name to join my party and then hold the party line, and everything else is unethical. I can't imagine a more obnoxious political viewpoint than tha…

I think your flavor of centrism is actually relatively rare. That you distrust both sides I think is the key to enabling 'the good kind' of centrism. Many with a similar viewpoint would call themselves Independent to separate themselves from the parties.

The issue lies is the false dichotomy of the two-party system. Centrists I interact with often seem to view the world as if the two party lines are a single dimension and that a rational 'compromise' position can be found somewhere in the middle.

So in effect, many centrists determine their positions by trusting BOTH parties - which can be just as bad or worse than having blind faith in either. They are setting the bounds of possibility in between two groups which have many ideological similarities (ex. how meaningfully different are democrats than republicans on war spending?).

The vast majority of 'issues' do not cleanly divide along ideological lines, and by viewing them through the distorted lens of the two-party dichotomy it creates a reductive perception of reality.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#519

Post by NaturalPhallacy »

mariodiana wrote: post #446
Moodles wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, sure, but why are we talking about Fox specifically? CNN, MSNBC, etc. are just as bad. I find this ironic since this thread is about how bias isn't necessarily about outright falsehoods, but story selection and what is not said :)

Jonathan Haidt (who is mentioned in the article) did a study years ago. He separated a group of people into conservatives and liberals and then gave them a questionnaire on politics. Then he got a second group, separated them, and gave them the same questionnaire. Only he asked the second group of liberals and conservatives to answer the questionnaire the way they imagined the other side would. What he found was that…

I'm currently a registered Pacific Green, lean left, and on the political compass I'm basically smack dab on top of Bernie Sanders (whom I voted for and donated to in the 2016 primaries). And have never voted Republican. So his observation is about my own "side" more or less.

But I'm totally unsurprised to see this downvoted here only 18 minutes in.

Here's a short article on the paper: https://ricochet.com/76902/archives/conservatives-understand...

The paper itself: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2027266

Here's his TED talk on it: https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_the_moral_roots_of_...

What's funny is if you bring this up (even with sources) to conservatives. They're unsurprisingly unsurprised. But if you bring it up to liberals they often get furious because it goes against their beliefs that they're the more intelligent, more educated "side". Nevermind that believing in only two possible sides is six times dumber than astrology... something "both sides" are about equally guilty of. If nothing else I strongly encourage everyone to watch his TED talk. It's super informative, well delivered, and has a solid message of unity tbh.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#520

Post by NaturalPhallacy »

parafactual wrote: post #490
mariodiana wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jonathan Haidt (who is mentioned in the article) did a study years ago. He separated a group of people into conservatives and liberals and then gave them a questionnaire on politics. Then he got a second group, separated them, and gave them the same questionnaire. Only he asked the second group of liberals and conservatives to answer the questionnaire the way they imagined the other side would. What he found was that…

Do you have a link? You may be right, but such a study seems very easy to bias, even unintentionally.

Here's a short article on the paper: https://ricochet.com/76902/archives/conservatives-understand...

The paper itself: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2027266

Here's his TED talk on it: https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_the_moral_roots_of_...

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